Local Food Challenge

Growing up in the rural Midwest, I was constantly surrounded by thousands of square miles of corn and soybeans year after year. I remember when I learned that the vast majority of the millions and millions of ears of corn we produce in the Midwest GOES TO FEED LIVESTOCK, NOT PEOPLE. Rural food culture, in the USA at least, is so meat oriented that people literally do not know what to put in a meal if meat isn't the main course.

To others, this may sound like an exaggeration or overly bold statement, but I make it with confidence. I am a lifelong vegetarian, and I think I have a unique perspective on both meat-eating and vegetarianism because of this. Meat reflects massive social inequalities, low-income people can't afford it, but desire it as it is seen as a high status good. As populations grow around the world, the inefficiencies of meat production become too large to absorb. Raising livestock requires grain to feed them, much more than they return in edible product. Meat supplies less energy to the body than equivalent amounts of grain or other plants because it uses up a lot of those grains to power the livestock throughout their lives.

The Midwest USA is a huge contributor to this problem and only through the encouragement of less meat-intensive diets will will begin to see a major shift in food networks and security.